The Shape I'm In
by Blackbirdox
Summary: Slowly but surely, Neil Perry just falls apart. Rated M for mentions of self harming.


**Disclaimer: Despite my constant begging, I still don't own Dead Poets Society.**

**A/N: I was going through my documents today and found the start of this fic and decided I might as well just finish it since I've had the idea in my head for months. It really didn't turn out the way I wanted it to but since I finished it, I figured I might as well put it up. I think our fandom needs all the updates it can get. So anyway, I hope it turned out better than I think it did and that you all enjoy it!  
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He no longer remembers what got him here, what turned him into the person he's become.

Maybe there was never a real cause, he muses.

Maybe he did it to himself.

Maybe he was only born this way.

Maybe he just changed- went to bed one way and woke up as an entirely different person.

In the end though, he supposes, it's not the cause that really matters anyway.

/

There are some days where he just feels foreign within the confines of his own skin.

He feels trapped, caged in like a bird, like an animal, like Daedalus, lost in a Labyrinth of his own design.

Some days, his skin just itches, _crawls_, like something beneath its surface is clawing for its release.

Some days, he'd like to shed it, to step into someone else's skin, someone else's life.

Some days, though, it feels as if he already has.

/

He never used to be like this.

He used to feel, used to be happy or sad or scared. Now he's just numb from head to toe.

Now needs help to feel, to hurt and to ache or to smile.

Now he needs his secret, what's tucked away beneath his undershirts and ties in his dresser drawer, wrapped up in an old pair of socks with a hole in the toe.

He takes it out more and more often now, disappearing to the bathroom in the middle of the night or in the middle of class or during study hall.

No one ever catches on, never stops to question him when he passes on dinner or lunch or a weekend soccer game.

They never ask about his omnipresent sweaters or the occasional bandage that peeks out from under their edge, never seem to notice an occasional blood stained sleeve.

But that's a relief, he supposes. He'd have no answers to their questions anyway.

/

He learns out to be more careful about it, more secretive, safer.

He choreographs every one of his movements like the painstaking steps of a dance to ensure that nothing will go wrong, that he won't go too deep or to any place that's not easily hidden.

He sterilizes his things, lays them out like a surgeon does his tools, and makes sure everything is in his reach- towels, bandages, peroxide.

And he _is_ safe about it, careful and meticulous, and he takes it slow to avoid making a mistake.

He does it a few times, just enough to quell the nagging persistence in the back of his mind.

He does it to appease the monster raging beneath his skin, to wake him up and make him come alive.

He does it until the tips of his fingers tingle and his brain goes a little fuzzy, until his muscles unclench and everything fades away.

And then he knows what it means to feel.

/

He likes to pretend that he's in control of things, even though he knows he's not.

He likes to pretend that one day all of this is going to go away; that he'll wake up and the pain in his chest will be gone, that he'll be able to breathe again.

He knows it won't, but as long as he can hope, he knows he's not completely lost.

/

He has reasons to change, he supposes. Things that make him happy, people he loves, something to live for.

He looks at Todd and thinks that maybe he could be it, exactly what he's always needed, but then he looks at himself and realizes that Todd doesn't deserve that. _No one_ deserves that, to be the crutch that he depends on.

There's a cliff, and he's standing right on the edge of it.

Falling would be easy, as simple as breathing, and stepping back would be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do.

In the end, there are reasons for both.

He just has to make the right choice. Whatever that is.

/

The more time passes, the more he starts to change.

He unravels, looses himself, just becomes swallowed up in a sea of grief.

The dark creeps over him like a blanket, starting at his toes and rising, ever so slowly, until it consumes him, makes him forget his anchors, his ties to reality and to life and to happiness.

The change of the season brings along a change in him as well.

For the first time, he has his mind made up. He's just tired and worn from years of struggling to stay afloat and trying to fight a losing battle.

He's tired of the nightmares, of the panic attacks, of the scars on his skin and the ones that lie beneath it. He's tired of hurting and having to hurt himself to dull what's on the inside. He's tired of being empty, of feeling as cold as the impending snow.

He has no will anymore; not to fight, not to recover, not to live.

Now it's only a matter of time.

/

The death of Neil Perry was a long and drawn out process and not as sudden as it had seemed.

It wasn't a hasty or rash decision- it never had been. It had been a long time coming, something that had been brewing for years, since he was just a little boy.

It wasn't the violent, bloody thing that the rest of the world thought it was. It was peaceful and quiet like the snuffing of a candle. It was a release that nothing else would have ever been able to give him.

There had been a cliff and he'd been on the edge of it, and falling was easier than breathing had ever been.


End file.
